Teachers to get MOT'd

[poppet2]

Just out of interest I would be fascinated to know what non-teachers think 'a poor teacher' is. What are the criteria for failure, in your view? Is it just one thing, or several? At what point does an 'average' teacher' tip over into 'poor', or on the other hand, 'good'? Please reveal.

 

I will give you a good example of a bad teacher, although I was not aware of it at the time. We had a music teacher who used to hand out sheets of the same old songs every lesson, while she hardly ever spoke but just played the piano.

At the time we used to always look at our music lessons as being an easy lesson to bundle through. Looking back, I realised that in those first three years of music lessons at secondary school, we learnt absolutely nothing re. music. How anyone was suppose to even think of taking music as an option, I don't know. What an absolute waste. Looking back I wonder if she was on sedatives.

 

Our teacher got money for old rope and it was an utter disgrace. We learnt nothing about notes, beats, etc. or even how to play the recorder, if we were fortunate enough to be given one. We were sometimes handed the odd tambourine or triangle, for a bit of variety, while in every lesson we sung 'Lets go fly a kite', a song I can remember to this very day.

[tinfoilhat]

Is what whose fault? What is the 'it' that you want to blame someone for?

 

Not all of them, no. But where they fell short, I made up the deficit myself. I was self-motivated, if you like; I didn't assume that it was up to my teachers to get me the grades I aspired to.

 

Some of the teachers I had in my grammar school would not have lasted 5 minutes in many of today's classrooms. They only got away with being lazy and inept because we were compliant, well-motivated, middle class girls and would not have dreamt of being rude, complaining about them, or disrupting lessons. If the same set-up applied now, I would support calls for teachers to be registered, as in those days (70s) there were no league tables, no targets, no checks on teachers past their probationary year, no CPD, no appraisal, nobody ever got sacked even if they attacked the pupils physically. But nowadays there is a complex system of performance management in place and registration would be just another (unnecessary) burden of bureaucracy and stress.

 

What is "it" ? This perhaps http://www.theguardian.com/business/2011/may/09/cbi-criticises-schools-literacy-numeracy or indeed this

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-376627/The-Oxbridge-students-spell-sums.html

 

Lower standards really. My grammar skills (as you can guess;)) and historical knowledge probably isn't as high as my parents and they technically have the same level of education as me. It's not all the teachers fault by any stretch but surely it can't be a bad thing to try and raise standards where we can.

[aliceBB]

 

Lower standards really. My grammar skills (as you can guess;)) and historical knowledge probably isn't as high as my parents and they technically have the same level of education as me. It's not all the teachers fault by any stretch but surely it can't be a bad thing to try and raise standards where we can.

I will give you a good example of a bad teacher, although I was not aware of it at the time. We had a music teacher who used to hand out sheets of the same old songs every lesson, while she hardly ever spoke but just played the piano.

At the time we used to always look at our music lessons as being an easy lesson to bundle through. Looking back, I realised that in those first three years of music lessons at secondary school, we learnt absolutely nothing re. music. How anyone was suppose to even think of taking music as an option, I don't know. What an absolute waste. Looking back I wonder if she was on sedatives.

 

Our teacher got money for old rope and it was an utter disgrace. We learnt nothing about notes, beats, etc. or even how to play the recorder, if we were fortunate enough to be given one. We were sometimes handed the odd tambourine or triangle, for a bit of variety, while in every lesson we sung 'Lets go fly a kite', a song I can remember to this very day.

 

tinfoilhat: if your written English skills are less secure than your parents', you cannot simply assume that standards have fallen. There are many other factors which might have produced this. Off the top of my head... you may have been less motivated, or had less interest in, or respect for, the written language than your parents had. You may have found punctuation, grammar and spelling harder than they did. They probably spent a greater proportion of their curriculum time on written English than you did. Your English teacher might have had to put up with more disaffected kids in the classroom, or ones with extreme behaviour issues who would in your parents' youth not have been in mainstream classes. Even comparing literacy skills of thousands of pupils over different generations is not very objective. All you can say is 'Generation X could spell more/fewer words correctly' or Generation Y on average scored higher/lower in punctuation tests'. You cannot with any certainty declare that this was, or was not, because of the teachers or the teaching methods.

 

poppet2 : That sounds very like my music lessons at age 11 and I agree, they were a waste of time. But you still haven't actually identified what you think the characteristics of a bad (or good) teacher are, you've simply produced one example of a bad one.

 

The reason I ask is because the phrases 'poor teaching' and 'bad teachers' are bandied around endlessly, but nobody seems to be able to define objectively what they mean. Until you can come up with something measurable - some objective criteria by which to judge overall performance - how can 'poor teachers' be 'winkled out' without a witch-hunt?

[BEDROCK]

I'd have loved to have given Mrs Howarth's bodywork the once over when i was at school.

 

Mr Howarth, did you go to Carter Lodge or Birley Secondary School.

 

I think this is a good idea, but once being a Teaching Assistant myself I can vouch for any Teacher in saying that they have a hell of a job, they have mountains of work that they also have to do at home and their targets at work are unreal.

 

They also have to work within the curriculum and they never get the chance to be creative and stamp their authority.

 

So in theory regular tests are good but we cannot have Teachers running scared and rushing workloads as it will not work.

[Anna B]

Genuine questions here....are many teachers sacked because of incompetence? If not is it because there aren't many incompetent teachers or are there other reasons?

 

Most teachers who can't teach leave of their own volition.

 

To be honest, if you can't do the job your life is a misery. Kids can spot weakness a mile off and will take advantage of it, not to mention the workload itself.

[SpikeMac]

Most teachers who can't teach leave of their own volition.

 

To be honest, if you can't do the job your life is a misery. Kids can spot weakness a mile off and will take advantage of it, not to mention the workload itself.

 

Best post on the thread by a mile.

 

And that includes my other contributions:)

[Anna B]

Sledgehammer to crack a nut. And who will pay for all the registration process?

 

Teachers (even experienced, high-achieving ones) are already observed, assessed and performance-managed to the point where they feel they like performing seals. Their terms and conditions have been taken back to those of the early 1900s; they pay much more for a far smaller pension.

 

Before celebrating the imposition of yet more pointless bureaucracy on an already demoralised profession, remind yourself that 50% of new teachers leave within the first 5 years, usually to take up better paid, less stressful jobs in industry/commerce, or in education systems abroad where teachers are valued more highly than they are here. If politicians want to empty the schools of teachers completely, they are going the right way about it.

 

Then parents will have to educate their children themselves. Judging by the comments regularly aired on this forum, most of you think you would make a better job of it than your kids' 'crap' teachers, so here's your chance. Can't imagine most of you lasting 5 minutes, but hey. At least you might develop some sense of what teaching involves, and how difficult it can be, especially with truculent, switched-off teenagers. Good luck! Let us know how you get on.

 

Cynical, moi?

 

---------- Post added 12-01-2014 at 01:19 ----------

 

 

Good teachers need both. A good grasp of the subject content (to at least the level beyond which they will be teaching it), and an understanding of how children learn and the range of teaching methods and resources available, as well as the psychology of the education process.

 

Primary teachers need to be confident in all areas of the curriculum up to at least GCSE level; secondary teachers, up degree level in their own subject.

 

Yep. I agree on both points.

Teachers seem to have become scapegoats for all the ills of society. In fact they are more usually on the receiving end of them...

[adamf]

So to clarify it the governments fault, the parents fault and the kids fault but not the teachers?

 

Parents have a lot more opportunity to screw kids up than teachers have to straighten them out.

 

Did all your teachers inspire you and get the best they could out of you?

 

Yes, absolutely.

[poppet2]

 

poppet2 : That sounds very like my music lessons at age 11 and I agree, they were a waste of time. But you still haven't actually identified what you think the characteristics of a bad (or good) teacher are, you've simply produced one example of a bad one.

 

The reason I ask is because the phrases 'poor teaching' and 'bad teachers' are bandied around endlessly, but nobody seems to be able to define objectively what they mean. Until you can come up with something measurable - some objective criteria by which to judge overall performance - how can 'poor teachers' be 'winkled out' without a witch-hunt?

 

A poor teacher is a teacher that is incapable of communicating and therefore teaching. My maths teacher did the answer to all the sums on the blackboard without explaining how he reached the answer. He just put the answers on the board and went on to the next subject. He may have had all the qualifications in the world after his name, but he couldn't teach, that is a separate skill.

 

My music teacher obviously had no proper plan for the class. Aren't teachers suppose to take time to prepare for every class they take? Is this not something that takes careful planning and preparation or were such things abolished in favour of some new form of teaching? Tell me AliceBB, just how long does it take the average teacher to prepare for a lesson, is it an in depth, well thought out plan or just something quickly scribbled out on the train journey in the morning?

[aliceBB]

A poor teacher is a teacher that is incapable of communicating and therefore teaching. My maths teacher did the answer to all the sums on the blackboard without explaining how he reached the answer. He just put the answers on the board and went on to the next subject. He may have had all the qualifications in the world after his name, but he couldn't teach, that is a separate skill.

I agree, a good teacher needs to be a good communicator. But how is good communication to be measured and graded and judged objectively, as OFSTED and Heads would need to do? Also, effective oral communication can take more than one form; some teachers can communicate better with 11 year olds than with 18 year olds.

 

My music teacher obviously had no proper plan for the class. Aren't teachers suppose to take time to prepare for every class they take? Is this not something that takes careful planning and preparation or were such things abolished in favour of some new form of teaching? Tell me AliceBB, just how long does it take the average teacher to prepare for a lesson, is it an in depth, well thought out plan or just something quickly scribbled out on the train journey in the morning?

No, lesson planning takes time and energy. Typically, for a new teacher, it takes an hour to plan an hour's lesson and produce any new resources for it (assuming there is a scheme of work in place that they're following) and another hour to mark/assess the outcomes. You get faster as you get more experience and some of the best lessons are the 'Plan B' ones you have up your sleeve if the internet or the interactive whiteboard fails (as it often does in schools) and your Plan A cannot be used. You cannot however simply pull out a plan for a lesson which has worked well in the past and use it on a different ability group without modifying it.

 

That said I'm sure my lazy, complacent teachers in the 70s would have been affronted if they were ever asked to write up a lesson plan - but they wouldn't get away with that today.